When I left my mid-sized consulting firm two years ago to start my own practice, I knew it meant more time on administration and marketing. However, I did not count on the amount of time required to forge a new brand, especially when the nature of consulting is undergoing (another) big shift. I am a little overwhelmed with the new research, new marketing, new services, etc. Am I making too big a deal of this?

You feel what every small firm consultant who wants to pursue, or is being pushed into, a new market is experiencing. Some felt this a year ago; others will feel it over the coming year. This disruption can be paralyzing, given all that has to be done to maintain your skills, divine future markets, and compete with other consultants also expanding their services. It varies by industry whether managers see consultants as expenses they can't afford, replacements for staff they can't afford to hire, or essential sources of expertise they can't do without. Each circumstance has its own pressures on suggesting that we need to work harder to keep up.

What you can do is to not get overwhelmed with the amount of things you could do. If you don't remember it, read A.A. Milne's poem "The Old Sailor" to get some perspective on what happens when you are so engrossed with everything you could do and don't step back and do what you need to do. In your case, consider cutting out half of your to do list (or whatever amount is needed to leave you with a solid work week). What did you cut out that you really needed to do this week?

Tip: There is a saying, "If you want a job done, give it to a busy person." This is not to suggest that you are not busy, but there is something about a full, well-managed schedule that prevents the less important tasks from even getting on your to do list. Be ruthless with new tasks - only accept jobs from yourself that have a definitive ROI for your business.

© 2011 Institute of Management Consultants USA

When a consultant has a new client, there is a period of time before we really understand the culture and personality of a client sponsor and the organization. What seems like an appropriate recommendation may seem to the client too radical or not impactful enough. Is it better to go big and let the client scale it back or take some other approach?

This is a great question because we tend to focus on getting the right answer and not necessarily the right size answer. Western cultures take a linear and reductionist approach to analysis. We take a big problem, decompose it into its parts and solve the components and then reassemble it into what we presume is an appropriate scale solution. Unless we have a good sense, at the outset of the analysis, a sense of at what scale the solution should be, we risk creating an intervention for the client that is over engineered or insufficient to be effective.

The answer lies in understanding the nature of the problems we are trying to solve. Each problem has its own scale, and finding it requires knowing the scale at which the recommended intervention will be most effective, not the perceived scale of the problem itself.

Consider environmental policymaking. We consider overpopulation, biodiversity loss, air pollution and limited strategic resources as complex, pervasive problems. While they may exist globally, their solution depends on the physical, institutional and cultural options available to solve them. Hence, effective climate policy is global, energy policy is national and water policy is local.

Tip: Define as early as possible the scale at which you will craft your solutions. But be careful. If you have not dealt with the kind of problem sufficiently to identify the solution space and scale prior to starting the engagement, consider whether you really understand the client condition and solutions well enough to take on the engagement ethically.

© 2011 Institute of Management Consultants USA

I can't be the only independent professional with the problem of overly complex scheduling. I usually carry about five clients at any one time, some of which have more than one location. Juggling appointments and accommodating everyone's schedules are burning me out. How do others do this?

Consider the environment you are creating for yourself. It sounds like you are letting your clients schedule your time instead of the other way around. Mutual respect is the first casualty of appearing to be (and being) unwilling to manage your own time. I recognize that you want to serve your clients by accommodating their schedule. However, you may be surprised by how much more respect you'll get and, consequently, how much more valuable they'll consider your time if you restrict the times you are available for consultation.

Consider your experience with a doctor's office appointment. Their time is tightly scheduled because they need to see many patients each day and the uncertain length of time of each visit. Same with cable and appliance repair services. Now that I've compared you to service providers that are widely despised for poor scheduling (because of the unpredictability of their work), let me assure you that creative and structured scheduling can work for consultants because you have more control over your time.

What would happen if you established specific times for your office visits each week, other times (or days) for your group meetings, and still other times for your online meetings or webinars? For example, your onsite appointments are Tuesday and Thursday from 10am-2pm, your staff catch-up meetings by video are on Monday and Friday mornings, and your one-on-one calls with client sponsors are on Wednesday or Friday afternoons. Recognizing that there may need to be some exceptions, a predictable schedule will lower your stress and increase the recognition by your clients that your time is valuable.

Tip: There are technologies that may help you schedule your time or at least help you think about some of the issues about managing appointments if you don't think tools will help you better manage your time. One is Time Tracker (there are many others) that sets up available times for people to make appointments. The data flow into your Outlook calendar and gives legitimacy to your available (and valuable) time for appointments.

© 2011 Institute of Management Consultants USA